Max Schindler

Having a tough day? Take a quick break and have a read of our interview with the wonderfully eccentric Max Schindler. We asked Max to answer some questions for us earlier in the week; here is what we received back. Please take a read, it will brighten your day, we promise! (And incase there’s any confusion, my name is Liz!)

MS: First, an apology. Since pastiche is what I mainly do, I thought it might be fun to conduct this blog interview as a pastiche. Pastiche, as you know, is working in the style of others, but without directly copying (that would be a copyist). I find the best way to achieve a convincing pastiche is to start by using the right medium: watercolour for watercolours, oil for oil, ink for ink. So this blog will be an interview, in the style of Count Arthur Strong’s Radio Show.

When committing (if that’s the right word, and if it isn’t it ought to be) a pastiche, it’s considered polite to recognise the inspiration provided by the original artist by signing the work ‘after…X’ or sometimes, if the pasticher is feeling whimsical, with ‘apologies to…X’.

Today apologies are firmly in order, and go to Steve Delaney.

Artist Partners presents: Far too long with… Max Schindler,

Interviewed by Lisa Evans

AP: Hello Max, we usually start by asking our artists to tell us a little about their background.

MS: Super Nigel, well the background I’m using today is a sort of greyie-blue gouache wash with splattering of spots of pale gree…

AP: No, we actually meant your personal background.

MS: Well of course you did Noel. You can probably tell from my name I’m not from round these parts, or at least my parents aren’t or weren’t.

That’s my family there, on this photo what I’ve provided. And at my own cost I might add, so I’ll want reimbursing for that for starters. And I shall want it back, so don’t go slipping it in your pocket

You see Norman, we grew up in a very small alpine village during the war and times were very hard- we could only afford the one half of bitter between us. And we were all quiet stunted. Even the furniture was small- and outside.

That’s me in the middle. No, wait a minute, that’s mum in the middle. I’m behind her. No that’s not me behind her; I don’t know who that is but it’s not me. Wait a minute I’m not sure I’m in this picture at all, and I don’t recognise anyone else who isn’t in it either. Come to think of it, I don’t think this is my family. Well I don’t know or what’s happened there, or how this got into my photo album, did you put it there Nicholas?

AP: It’s Liz, and how could I have sneaked a photo into your album, and why would I want to.

MS: Well, I don’t know Neville. I was wondering that very same thing myself. And if you don’t know either, well that’s even more worrying, isn’t it. I’ll shall to have a look for that snap once we’ve done with this here interview thingy. Obviously I shall hold Artist Partners solely responsible for any financial lose I might incur during the filming of this blog.

AP: Er, well perhaps. Can we get back to the interview; you can tell us how you got into illustration.

MS: Yes Norbert, I can.

AP: And will you?

MS: I’d be delighted Neil. I first considered illustration or drawing and colouring in, as we call it in the bizz, when I’d tried everything else. I remember we’d just been demobbed- mother had joined up as well, and we were at a bit of a loose end and thought drawing and colouring in for a living would be just the ticket to stop us hanging around street corners all day; which incidentally, is not as much fun as you might think it is I can tell you.

Not a lot of people know that when Ian Fleming wasn’t writing his famous Brook Bond books he ran a thriving illustration agency in the heart of London’s swinging Soho district. Now Nathaniel, here’s a picture of me off on my first day to work in Ian Fleming’s illustration studio.

Hang on a minute, that’s not me. That’s ‘Streaky’ Bacon that is, and he still owes me money for all them paintings I did for him; that’s probably why I took this photo, so I’d recognise him if I ever saw him again. Which I never did; so there’s a waste of five bob. Oh yes, that’s definitely Streaky Bacon. Very shifty was old Streaky; always had his hand in his pocket- or somebody else’s.

AP: OK. And what does a typical day making art involve for you?

MS: Well Nigella, a typical days making art would involve me getting up. And really Sandra, for a professional like myself, it’s all downhill from there.

I’m in the back row with the centre parting- next to the Sundown Kid, no not the Sundown Kid… Butch Cassidy, no not Butch… David, David bloody Cassidy.

No, hang on, wait a minute; that’s not me, that’s a woman that is – I’m almost certain.

Anyhow, I’m sure I’m in there somewhere. And since you ask Noah, being part of the Partridge Family is one of those things which, I said I’d done before the drawing and colouring in. If you’d have been listening Nick you’d know that. And I never got paid for that neither. Five bloody years squeezed in the back of a bloody van with six tone deaf midgets and a mad clown. Never again Norris, never again; I don’t care how bloody much they weren’t paying me.